European Communities (Finance) Bill

No. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford said that he did not want to give an analysis on Iceland, and I will not start giving an analysis on nuclear weapons. I believe that much of this is about how effective the negotiators were in dealing with the rebate. Today, if one speaks to Icelandic politicians—we are returning to the theme of Iceland—one finds that they still talk in derogatory terms about how Roy Hattersley negotiated the fishing stocks between Britain and Iceland back in 1978. They still laugh at that. In political circles in Reykjavik it is still talked about, and people there say that the poor negotiation and his poor performance as a negotiator cost the United Kingdom millions of pounds. The deal before us will be talked about in 20, 30 and 40 years' time as an appallingly bad negotiated settlement that has cost our taxpayers and our children billions of pounds.